Reno
by Wildchild Laio
Summary: Reno Shinra encounters a mysterious soldier...Shinra is falling apart, Rufus is in a most foul mood, and Hojo is up to something...(shounen aiangst warning!)
1. Default Chapter

"Damn you all. Damn this planet and meteor and that goddamned maniac Sephiroth!"  
  
Reno Shinra, the redhead member of Shinra special force, the Turks, slurred leaning against the wall.   
  
The day had surely sucked. It couldn't possibly have gone worse than this.  
  
Early in the morning he'd received a phone call from Rude. The quiet man had told him that he would   
  
have to leave Midgar for a couple of days. Ha had refused to give a reason why and the call had ended  
  
with a enraged Reno slamming the phone down.  
  
Damn Rude, didn't he know by now that without him Reno couldn't functional properly? He NEEDED  
  
the big dope at his back to feel secure. He needed him by the table when he drank himself flat drunk.  
  
And to top things off Elena had been PMSing all morning, ranting on and on about the Shinra company  
  
spirits and how Reno was ruining the image of the Turks with his outrageous behaviour.   
  
Drinking himself into a stupor among the common soldiers. Not only that but he dressed   
  
sloppy and smelled as if he hadn't had a shower in weeks. That last comment about the   
  
smell had been ridiculous. Reno knew he didn't smell bad but whiny, stick up her arse,  
  
Elena would seemingly jump at anything to have something to rant and rave about.  
  
He'd slammed the office door shut in her face just for the hell of it.  
  
And then he'd given the finger to the high and mighty shinra spirit and headed off to the   
  
lower levels of Midgar, dressed as a commoner. After that, things had gone the way they  
  
allays did when Reno tried something on his own. Quick and straight to hell.  
  
He was drunk, his head swimming and his stomach hurting as if it had been skewered  
  
with a pitchfork by an angry dwarf. Reno wanted to puke but he hadn't been  
  
granted that relief. Instead he was swallowing air and thick saliva, wondering  
  
if there was a way, short of killing himself, to ease the pain. He didn't think so.  
  
Sliding to the pavement he groaned, hugging himself miserably. God he was   
  
glad that Elena wasn't there to see him. She'd probably laugh her ass of and  
  
then run straight to shinra HQ to report on him. Then president Rufus would   
  
drag him by his hair into his private chambers and have his sorry ass on a plate.  
  
Rufus was a scary son of a bitch. Reno had scars on his body to prove it. Reno   
  
had hated old man Shinra but he hadn't feared him. He'd thought that when  
  
Sephiroth had left the president dead as a speared fish , that things would  
  
somehow change for the better. That was until the blonde sadistic maniac   
  
arrived. No one had known about the existence of the son of the Shinra president.   
  
No one except maybe for Scarlet. The old hag had a nose for gossip.  
  
Reno smiled in a kind of dreamy happiness and then bent over and puked until his  
  
stomach was empty. Shivering he sat there, staring in dreary fascination at the  
  
weird, disgusting mix of alcohol.  
  
"There goes 2000 gil," he murmured solemnly. He thought that maybe it had  
  
been a terrible waste of money. Gods knew he needed to buy himself a assload  
  
of healing potions and elixirs if the bigass meteor was going to hit the planet.  
  
Although then again, if the meteor did hit - and by the glaring red look of it, it   
  
would- there probably would be no need for elixirs or potions. He'd die like everyone  
  
else and then he'd never have to be afraid of Sephiroth or Rufus shinra or any one  
  
else in this big, fucking hostile world.  
  
It was a tough that was almost reassuring.   
  
" Are you alright?" The voice startled him and he looked up. There was a stranger  
  
standing by the opposite wall. He was regarding Reno with calm blue eyes.  
  
Glowing blue maco eyes. Soldier eyes.  
  
Reno swallowed thickly and nodded.  
  
"I'll live…" he giggled. "Then again, I'm already dead- we all are- so what does  
  
it matter…Hey, would you help me haul my ass back inside? I'll buy you a drink!" The stranger shook his head.  
  
"You're really out of it aren't you?- Then again, I guess that it is only a natural  
  
reaction with that big monster in the sky, Sephiroth, and all. But I'm not going to haul your ass anywhere."  
  
Reno managed to fix his green eyes on the man and snorted loudly.  
  
"Fine, if you don't want to help me I'll have to crawl there on my own..."   
  
The man stared at him openly.  
  
"You expect them to let you in so that you can puke on their expensive carpets?"  
  
he chuckled. "I don't think so. Hey, give up trying to poisoning yourself and I'll carry you to some place safe."  
  
"You're to late for that…" Reno slurred, his voice faint." There's no place safe in this   
  
world anymore…Besides, I don't usually follow strangers home on first meeting.   
  
I'm not that drunk." he struggled against the wall, slowly finding foothold and then  
  
he stood up swaying. Groaning in pain.  
  
"Fuck…head hurts…Never learnt when it's enough. Going to puke again…The world is  
  
going to hell and we're all going with it…I…I…."  
  
Suddenly a pair of arms grabbed him carefully from behind. He jerked violently.  
  
"What the fuck!? Don't touch me!" his voice was a ragged hiss, close on panic.   
  
"Hush, you're going to fall. Just lean on to me. I'll get you home, where ever that might be…"  
  
Reno shook his head.  
  
"You're out of your mind…I'll puke on you…Why do you help me?" There was no answer  
  
and slowly his muscles relaxed and he leaned back against the other man.  
  
"Um…So anyway…what is your name," he heard himself murmuring.  
  
"I am…I'm Zack." Came the reply after a moment of silence. Reno thought he heard a   
  
hint of sorrow in the voice then.   
  
"Zack huh?" Reno felt his eyes slowly closing as he was drifting into unconsciousness.  
  
"Zack…why does that name sound so familiar." and then nothing. Reno smiled to himself lost in the darkness.  
  
Maybe it isn't such a bad way to die in the arms of a handsome stranger.   
  
Unfortunately for Reno, he was far from dead and the next morning he would awake with a  
  
raging headache, next to his mysterious knight in shining armour.... 


	2. Strange meetings, quick partings

"Strange meetings, quick partings"  
  
By: Wildchild Laio   
  
This story centers around Reno and will contain shounen ai + a tasteful (?) amounth of angsting ...and allso I'm taking huge liberties with a couple of the characters...If you can't tolerate that I am playing with the FF7 boys, changing a few minor (...)details in the FF7 storyline, DO NOT read any further...(Allso, as you might allready have noticed...my english is terrible...)  
  
The first thought that struck Reno as he opened his eyes and found that he was laying on top of a bed in a small, dimly lit room, was that he'd fucked up royally. Judging by the starlit sky he could see trough the rooms single window, it was probably in the middle of the night.He was still dressed in the clothes from yesterday, the half way buttoned, red shirt haphazardly hanging over the front of his worn black leather pants. The matching leather jacket hung over a   
  
chair by the door. Suddenly he became aware of the weight beside him on the bed and his green eyes widened slowly.  
  
"Gods…please don't let it be THAT again…" he groaned hoarsely.   
  
Slowly he managed to turn over, his face ghostly pale from the pain in his head that this effort cost him. There was another   
  
man in the bed alright. A fully dressed, soundly asleep young man. Reno sighed with relief and then the memory of yesterday struck him.He'd gone out on one of his drinking sprees and he'd puked his guts out and then this guy had picked his sorry ass out of the gutter and probably saved him from getting mugged or worse…  
  
Reno stared at the other mans face, almost hidden behind the unruly mass of raven-black hair.   
  
He was muscular built, but at the same time he looked young, probably not much older than   
  
Reno himself. It was a kind face, a face used to smiling and laughing. But there were tired lines   
  
around the eyes as well. Eyes that probably had seen too much at a too early age.   
  
Such was the life of a soldier. Reno felt a twinge of sorrow at the thought.  
  
"I don't remember your name….but you sure are a saving angel…" he whispered in a weak voice.  
  
He closed his eyes and as he slowly drifted off to sleep he couldn't help thinking that there was something amazingly familiar about the man…Damn it if he could remember…  
  
When he woke up next time a face vas hovering inches over his. He let out a startled yelp and pulled away, wide eyed. It was only a boy, dressed in the kind of worn clothes that the people of the lower section of Midgar city so often wore.  
  
"Mister, I think it is time that you leave…" the boy stared at him with huge nervous eyes. "I know your friend paid for you but my parents are home any minute now and they won't be happy I let strangers in over the night."   
  
Reno looked around. His saviour were nowhere to be found. He'd left. Reno felt both relieved and a bit disappointed. He hadn't even had a chance to thank him.The boy continued to stare at him openly, and then with a blush he hurriedly turned away.  
  
"I'll give you a few minutes but if you're not out by then I'll have to call the sector guard."   
  
With that, the kid quickly exited the room.Reno buried his face in his hands and groaned. He had to get out of here before he created a even bigger mess.It was then that he remembered to look at his wrist watch. Doing so he let out a low scream and a row of terrified curses. He was late.  
  
Never had anyone of the Shinra employees seen the young Turk move as quick as he did as he ran trough the corridors. He knew he was late, no more than late, he'd probably missed more than half the meeting by now. Elena would be angry, Scarlet and Heidegger would punish him severely, that was, unless Rufus killed him first that was.   
  
Stopping outside the door he drew a shuddering breath and straightened up. Squaring his shoulders and assuming his usual lazy grace and self-confident smirk, he reached for the handle. His insides where trembling like jelly. He slipped inside soundlessly and immediately felt eyes upon him. Reeve was eyeing him quizzically but without malice. Elena was siting in a chair, surrounded by the two empty chairs that belonged to Reno and Rude. She was wearing a pale, stoic expression that was ruined somewhat by the fact that she was clutching her notebook so hard it looked as if it might snap any second. Reno would have laughed if it wasn't for the fact that a certain blonde was watching him from the other side of the room with all the intensity of a serpent readying for the kill. Rufus sat by the end of the long table.  
  
"So good of you to join us at last", the young president said with that deceptively calm voice.  
  
It was then that Reno knew he would not get out of this room without blood being spilt. His blood.   
  
Rufus Shinra was pressed from all sides: there was the constant threat of the meteor and the end of the world. Sephiroth roaming about the countryside and massacring Shinra soldiers and employees. There was that annoying thorn in the side, Avalanche, and that mysterious ex-Soldier Cloud with his gigantic sword. On top of that, the Junon canon would have to be moved from Junon to Midgar in case of new attacks. Heidegger and Scarlet were not doing a good job of getting it done either. All in all Rufus Shinra was probably more than happy to have someone to wreck his built up frustration upon. Reno had no doubt he'd have the honour of being precidential punchingbag. He was quite used to being the company scapegoat by now. Sighing he closed his eyes and waited, not really bothering listening to what was being said around the table. Not really caring about the hard eyes he felt glaring at him.  
  
He thought of the never ending grass fields outside of the city and what he wouldn't do to be out there battling Cloud and the other rebels.  
  
"Hell, even facing Sephiroth would be better than being trapped among the serpents in this hole", he thought ruefully. At least then his death would be a swift one...  
  
TBC... 


End file.
